It's poor roster construction, but it's not poor management when you account for the gross amount of talent and cost to acquire it. To get players that were better fits would've required paying more for lesser players (Hayward, Stephenson). This is especially true if you extend your analysis across multiple seasons, which makes the talent base more important. The Bulls have better options over the next 3 years with Niko signed at 6 mil/year than Hayward at 17 mil/year, even if Hayward's a better fit for our roster. I agree with the sentiment, but I don't think the conclusion fits the actual path that led Niko to the Bulls. He was a late 1st round pick that was taken because he was BPA, not because the Bulls org was fad-chasing. And now that he's here it's obvious that he's really, really good. And I'm actually beginning to think it's inaccurate to call Niko a stretch 4. He's a PF who's good at everything on offense, including taking guys off the dribble and shooting 3's. The latter two aren't very common for guys at his position, so he's called a stretch 4. But he's really just an offensive freight train.
Management had to know they were adding two PF/C types to Noah and Taj already there. They had all sorts of time and opportunity to trade one of the 4.
Niko is good. It remains to be seen if he's really, really good. Take 3 point shooting for example. Niko is good at three point shooting, right? Well, not this year. He's actually the 2nd worst Bull at 3 point %. Guys that have a higher 3 point shooting percentage than Niko? Pau Gasol Mike Dunleavy Aaron Brooks Tony Snell Jimmy Butler Kirk Hinrich (gasp!) E'Twaun Moore Doug McDermott Niko is only shooting 30.8% from three right now. That's not very good. Now, the threat of him shooting at the 4 creates space and opens up his entire game, but for him to be an elite stretch 4, he needs to be a good three point shooter. He hasn't been a good 3 point shooter this season. ------ When you look at one of the reasons the Bulls are perhaps underperforming, I think we've pretty well highlighted that Gasol at the 5 and Noah not at the 5 is one of the main, if not the main reason behind the defense taking a step back. On offense, the Bulls are taking a lot of low percentage 3s. Two of our highest volume 3 point shooters are Rose and Niko. Niko is the 2nd lowest guy on the team in 3 point percentage and Rose of course should be making this shot his 3rd option, instead of his first. I'd really like to see Niko hitting more of those three point shots. Otherwise, you are right, there is not much "stretch" to his stretch 4 game. If you are going to shoot 30%, the defense will say, fire away Niko!
Rose was a sieve on defense before his comeback from the latest surgery. Hinrich can't keep himself between his man and the basket. Brooks gets torched by taller guards. Jimmy missed 17 games. Noah missed 13 games. Taj missed 20 games. No wonder the defense isn't as good as last year. Poor perimeter defensive play and the best defenders missing 50 games combined. We are winning games with offense on some night and defense on others. Check out the opponents' score in these 6 of our last 8 wins: 86, 92, 86, 80, 82, and 78. Gave up 84 points per game.
Its interesting to see what the Cavs did after getting Lebron to get into complete "win now" mode. They had Andrew Wiggins. Bye bye Andrew, we want to win now. We're not integrating and dealing with rookie growing pains. We have a hole at the 5. Aggressively make a trade for Mosgov, a perfect fit for what they needed. We need glue guys. Get Shumpert and JR Smith (who the bulls cut for nothing, doh!). Nice moves. Complete transformation from roster with holes to the odds on to win the title in less than 1 season. Of course having Lebron helps, but still, that was some nice work. They are not half-assing the "win now." They may get a NBA championship out of the deal. Its interesting to see how much frustration about integrating rookies onto this veteran laden team has dominated the conversation this year for the Bulls.
I was thinking about this list for a while. It's pretty good. My only real quibble is that we have had an identity pretty much from the start. It has been the Pau and Jimmy show, with the side attraction of Rose trying to come back and be an all star again. Those two led us to almost all our victories, no matter the rest of the rotation. And they are all stars. The good news is Rose actually looks the best he has after this recent surgery. Add him to Pau and Jimmy and we have a big three that are all star caliber. Our identity hasn't changed. We are still banking on Rose and are likely doomed without him. We also have more things than last year in the bag of tricks,should the playoff rotation need tuning. We may not get past Cleveland, but even if healthy and no matter the starters and rest of the rotation we weren't favorites.
I believe that the identity of the Chicago Bulls the last few seasons has been a stout defense led by strong big men, an ironman in Deng and coach Thibs, along with for at least one season and playoff run, a MVP level performance from a dynamic PG in Derrick Rose. Butler has replaced Deng. The situation at the 4/5 has changed and the defense has become worse. The lack of an all-league defense is an identity shift for this team. You have identified who the key guys on the Bulls are, Rose/Butler/Gasol. That's a shift since last year Noah was All-NBA 1st team and DPOY. The fact that he isn't in that core is a shift. And its because Gasol is standing where Noah used to stand.
Last years roster was garbage. Our best player was a guy we got off waivers, Augustin. The shift is Boozer -> Pau.
The swap is Gasol for Noah at the 5. And Noah for Boozer at the 4. That's heavy minutes at the 5 for a shaky defender.
Last season in the playoffs against Washington, Noah guarded Nene and Boozer guarded Gortat. I don't think Noah's really being used that much differently on defense. On offense, they're not running the ball through the high post so much. And Gasol is brilliant at getting easy shots and baskets. I think this last point cannot be overstated.
Philly Aldemir - center http://stats.nba.com/player/#!/203128/tracking/shotslogs/ Pau was closest defender Miami Whiteside - center http://stats.nba.com/player/#!/202355/tracking/shotslogs/ Pau was usually the closest defender.
